Why was NJ included in the title? Any reg changes proposed will affect the entire coast unless any particular states' regs are already more conservative than would be required to manage their fisheries. Likewise, a state could propose alternative regs as long as they met the standard of " conservation equivalency." NJ is a bad example anyway in that there is the nuance of a bonus tag that allows the harvest of an extra fish, which amounts to what would be NJ's commercial quota if a NJ commercial striper fishery existed. Add to this that the ASMFC striper Board has not seen a proposal yet, or it's explanation, and no proposal has yet been prepared for public response,, and you realize that this and other more lively internet message board debates on the topic are premature.

Mike wrote:Why was NJ included in the title? Any reg changes proposed will affect the entire coast unless any particular states' regs are already more conservative than would be required to manage their fisheries. Likewise, a state could propose alternative regs as long as they met the standard of " conservation equivalency." NJ is a bad example anyway in that there is the nuance of a bonus tag that allows the harvest of an extra fish, which amounts to what would be NJ's commercial quota if a NJ commercial striper fishery existed. Add to this that the ASMFC striper Board has not seen a proposal yet, or it's explanation, and no proposal has yet been prepared for public response,, and you realize that this and other more lively internet message board debates on the topic are premature.

I'm sorry Mike, thats my bad - it was in a local paper here in DE about NJ, and I thought people would be interested.

Are the States bound by the ASMFC ? - i thought it was a co-operative venture rather than mandatory regulation ?

All of the coastal states from Maine fall under ASMFC jurisdiction. I am hoping that the striper reg discussion dos not burn itself out before it really counts, and when it really does count we would like it to be about the actual proposal rather than a discussion on a message board that occurred months earlier.

Catching 28" and 33" stripers is not that difficult. Although I like to eat the smaller fish why not set it to 1 fish over 40". That would really limit the amount harvested and provide a better amount of filets. Or simply drop it to one fish over 28".

While I really enjoy striper for dinner I rarely keep two a trip just because its hard to eat all of the fish before it gets freezer burnt. Sometimes I toss them all back. It is frustrating to watch people who keep two every time while knowing that they are simply cleaning the freezer burnt stuff out and replacing with new stuff to await freezer burn. It's impossible to eat two a day or even two a week yet I see people I know keeping everything they can.

All: Hold those thoughts and submit them to the ASMFC when the time is appropriate. I believe you will see a new striped bass addendum to the coastwide striper management plan sometime this summer or fall. That will be THE time to comment. I'll try to remind you when the time is right.

this has been discussed so much on so many other forums and everyone has their own thoughts. Not that that's a bad thing although I think some are not the best plan of action. the question what do we do to fix it is so loaded.

its not just one problem that we are dealing with its several. ill state the obvious. yea people are taking to many fish and the big one that are important. nutrient overload in the Chesapeake. one of largest nurseries for young stripers and all the runoff from farms is causing massive alga blooms killing everything. then there is the commercial menhaden fishery which the stocks are down to a fraction of what they were 20 some years ago.

so what do you do? honestly I don't know. id say if its as bad as everyone thinks put a moratorium on them for a year or two. then you make a slot. that's my idea. my size would be 25 to 34 inches one fish a day. all live bait fishing should be done using only circle hooks. or change the season to march through june catch and release. protect the spawners. in reality if you eat striper the small ones are better. the goal is that you are keeping the big spawners in the system and they will keep producing and there is always an abundance of fish in that slot. you are cutting peoples bag limits in half. its worked for redfish it would probably work for bass.

to address the other things like bunker its to hard to manage that in a way that makes everyone happy. pollution is another big problem and how do you take care of that? I can think of one thing and that is to restrict the bunker fishing. if you didn't know they are really good at cleaning water. reported that they can filter between 4 and 8 gallons of water a minute. if we had a higher stock I think it would take care of some of the alga bloom issues. but there are a lot of other industries that depend on the omega three protein that comes from bunker.

I personally don't think its as bad as people think it is. they all fear what happened back in the 80's I don't think we can get it down that far with the management that we have now. I like the concern from everyone but ill let you know how I truly feel after this spring.

If individuals desire a harvest slot or some form of maximum size limit, which the upper end of harvest slot represents, as an effort to protect the biggest spawners from harvest, then that needs to be made known at the appropriate time in addition to any thoughts concerning creel limits, seasons, etc.